Theatre

The Golden Globes that Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen took home last night for Best Animated Feature was still warm when news that Disney Theatrical was prepping to head to the Broadway stage by way of Fortune.com. The article, which spoke of the film’s momentum, does use the term ‘Broadway’ twice (once in the headline), but never directly attributes it to Bob Iger, the CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company.

Disney Theatrical today confirmed a report by Stitch Kingdom made just two days ago: the staged adaptation of ‘Shakespeare in Love’ will in fact be making its theatrical debut in summer of 2014 at the Noel Coward Theatre in London.

Contrary to previous reports, however (and none that originated from Stitch Kingdom), the adaptation of the Miramax film is credited to Lee Hall. It will be directed by Declan Donnellan and is being presented as a co-production between Disney Theatrical and Sonia Friedman Productions.

We first spoke of Disney Theatrical’s intent to develop the Miramax film Shakespeare in Love into a staged production exclusively back in early 2010. News of the production — along with several others we had talked about — has since been confirmed back in 2011 with word that Tom Stoppard would be adopting it for the stage, but little on the project can be found since.

We now believe that news of the production, which will make its debut in London (prior to Disney’s goal of bringing it to the Broadway stage), is likely to start in early 2014 with news of its staging imminent.

Nearly a year ago, we speculated that Disney Theatrical may have been working on creating a staged production involving the Muppets. Fast forward to last month (via today) and Variety is reporting that Disney Theatrical has in fact taken steps towards making it a reality.

According to the article, a fifteen minute segment was produced last month at the New Amsterdam Theatre, the future home of ‘Aladdin’ — another story we helped to break.

The article quotes Disney Theatrical head Thomas Schumacher as acknowledging the move, qualifying it was effectively a proof of concept to see if something more substantial would be feasible. It goes on to quote Schumacher as being ‘intrigued’ by the potential of bringing the Muppets to the stage.

Feld Entertainment, producer of Disney on Ice and other live touring staged productions featuring your favorite Disney characters, will be launching a new touring show, ‘Disney Junior Live on Tour! Pirate and Princess Adventure’ featuring characters from some of Disney Junior’s hottest stars.

Feld Entertainment, Inc. and Marvel Entertainment, LLC announced today a groundbreaking agreement, which allows the companies to produce an unprecedented new show that brings Marvel characters and stories to life in live-action arena spectaculars. The biggest Super Hero icons in the world; including Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Avengers, and X-Men unite together in one place to defend the Earth against the threats from the most fearsome villains in the Marvel Universe.

Disney Theatrical today officially confirmed what we have been reporting for some time — a staged musical adaptation of Aladdin is headed to Broadway for the 2014 season.

We have been talking about a staged adaptation by Disney Theatrical for nearly three years now, prior to its original incarnation at the 5th Avenue Theater in 2011. Since then, it has had several runs around the world and has consistently been edited as it continued to meet mixed reviews. Its reported lackluster performances fueled doubts when we relayed composer Alan Menken’s informal announcement last summer that it would in fact be headed for Broadway. Even after a reported leak which led to confirmation that ‘Mary Poppins’ would see its final Broadway curtain call on March 3, Disney Theatrical was slow to acknowledge that ‘Aladdin’ was waiting impatiently in the wings.

We had been talking about Disney Theatrical producing a musical based on Disney Animation’s Aladdinfor years, so it came as little shock to us when the production became fully realized at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater in early 2011.

Since then, the show has been re-tooled and has played at various regional theaters, but it wasn’t until a special private event for members of Disney’s official fan club, Disney D23, last summer, that we had any inkling that it was destined for Broadway (in truth, we believed a touring production would be as far as the plans went).

On November 13, 1997, Disney brought the staged, musical adaptation of its animated smash, The Lion King, to Broadway. Fifteen years later, it is now the the fifth longest-running musical in Broadway history, contains to sell out nightly and consistently has one of the top box-office intakes out of the dozens of theatrical offerings on Broadway alone.

Disney Theatrical’s ‘Newsies’ has announced that it will be taping a performance on the morning of Friday, November 2 as part of the CBS Thanksgiving Parade special. The cast will perform ‘King of New York’ to a very lucky, intimate crowd of just 75 ‘fansies’ at the Nederlander Theatre located at 208 W 41st Street in Manhattan, between 7th and 8th Avenues.

According to the event page from their official Facebook page, the taping will occur between 10 am and 11:30 am and will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis only, with lines forming at 9 am. Guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult.